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SUGAR-8 Reasons to Avoid it

Jun 20, 2017,
category: Others

Increased sugar intake is reportedly related to higher blood pressure and can also reduce good (HDL) cholesterol, increasing your risk of heart disease, heart attacks, and strokes. Excess sugar intake can also create a spike in blood sugar, which is a precursor for diseases such as diabetes.

The harmful effects of sugar go way beyond empty calories.

Added sugar is so unhealthy that it is probably the single worst ingredient in the modern diet.

Here are the top 9 reasons to avoid sugar as if your life depended on it (it does)

1. Added Sugar Supplies a Large Amount of Fructose

The reason added sugar (and its evil twin… High Fructose Corn Syrup) is bad for you, is that it supplies a very large amount of fructose

Fructose, however, is not essential to our functioning in any way.

When large amounts of fructose enter the liver and it is already full of glycogen, most of the fructose gets turned into fat

This process is probably one of the leading causes of the epidemics of many chronic, Western diseases.

2. Sugar Doesn’t Contain Any Vitamins or Minerals (Empty Calories)

People who eat them instead of other more nutritious foods will probably become deficient in many important nutrients.

3. Sugar Causes Deposition of Fat in The Liver

When we eat fructose, it goes to the liver.

If liver glycogen is low, such as after a run, the fructose will be used to replenish it

However, most people aren’t consuming fructose after a long workout and their livers are already full of glycogen.

When this happens, the liver turns the fructose into fat

Some of the fat gets shipped out, but part of it remains in the liver. The fat can build up over time and ultimately lead to Non-Alcoholic Fatty Liver Disease

4. Sugar Harms Your Cholesterol and Triglycerides

Most of the fat generated in the liver gets shipped out as Very Low Density Lipoprotein[VLDL] particles.

These particles are rich in triglycerides and cholesterol.

In a controlled study, people were assigned to drink 25% of calories as either a glucose-sweetened drink or a fructose-sweetened drink for 10 weeks

The fructose group had:

Increases in blood triglycerides.

Increases in small, dense LDL and oxidized LDL (very, very bad).

Higher fasting glucose and insulin.

Decreased insulin sensitivity.

Increased fat in the abdominal cavity (visceral fat).

Basically, 25% of calories as fructose significantly harmed blood lipids and caused features characteristic of the metabolic syndrome which is a stepping stone towards obesity, heart disease, diabetes and a (short) lifetime of poor health.

5. Sugar Causes Insulin Resistance

The main function of insulin is to drive glucose from the bloodstream into cells.

But when we eat a Western diet, the cells tend to become resistant to the effects of insulin.

When this happens, the pancreas start secreting even more insulin to remove the glucose from the bloodstream, because elevated blood glucose is toxic.

This is how insulin resistance leads to elevated insulin levels in the blood.

But insulin also has another important function… it tells the fat cells to pick up fat from the bloodstream and to hold on to the fat that they already carry.

This is how insulin causes obesity

6. Sugar Raises Your Risk of Western Diseases

Excess sugar consumption has been associated with many Western diseases.

If anything, sugar is the single largest contributing factor to the poor health of affluent nations.

Every time sugar (and refined flour and vegetable oils) enter a population’s diet, these people become sick.